100 feet-style Northeast Drag Racing comes to Long Island

Connecticut and Long Island New York drag racers have been without a drag strip for many years now. The closest tracks are Raceway Park in Englishtown, New Jersey and Lebanon Valley Dragway in West Lebanon, New York. It is a long ride to even get to these tracks and the tolls are outrageous. The last track on Long Island, Long Island Motorsports Park in Westhampton, closed in 2004. Connecticut Dragway has been closed since 1984. This area is loaded with drag race guys and they really miss there local tracks.

A group called the Holeshot Drag Racing Association (HDRA) has organized 100 foot drag races held on existing paved circle and oval tracks utilizing one of the straight-a-ways. They set up there christmas tree and timing equipment and run side by side races to the 100′ mark. As you can imagine the races are over quick and reaction time is very important. The E.T.’s are between 1 to 3 seconds. This organization has been holding races in Connecticut and has some races lined up in 2011 at some Long Island racetracks. Racers have mixed feelings about 100 foot racing but the majority feel that it is better than nothing. The races held in Connecticut have been a sucess and many Long Islanders are excited about being able to launch there drag cars on the Island again.

HDRA has 3 classes to compete in.
– STREET: Any street legal car equipped with normal everyday day tires. DOT drag radials or slicks are NOT permitted! Tires must have a wear factor of 200 or higher.
– COMP: Anything from modified street cars to all out racers. All tires are legal, including Drag radials and slicks. Cars can be purpose built racers.
– BIKE: All motorcycles, quads, ATV’s, etc. fall into this category. They do not have to be street legal.

All races, unless otherwise specified, will be dial-in bracket racing. Test n’ Tune has gotten up to 10 runs in one day. They also have burnout contests at some of the events and have even used a flagman to start some nostalgia races.